Program Control

Abstract

Programming, in the broadest sense of the word, is the total task of stating (to the necessary degree of precision) a problem, the domain in which it applies and a method for its solution. The statement must be complete, that is precise, unambiguous and sufficiently detailed so that a computer may be used to implement the method and obtain the solution. We saw in the previous chapter that such a complete statement may be developed by the method of top-down successive refinement: an action is first described in a single word or phrase and is then refined in successive steps until the description is sufficiently detailed and precise to be presented to the computer for execution.